The Agent's Secret Baby. Marie Ferrarella

know it’s selfish of you to keep it,” Angela had told her for the umpteenth time when she’d called last week. There was a knowing air of superiority in her sister’s voice. Angela was convinced she always knew what was best. “It needs a mother and a father. Since you decided to have it, you really should give it up for adoption.”

      “‘It’ is a baby,” Eve had shot back, one of the few times she’d lost her temper. But she was thoroughly annoyed at the flippant, cavalier way her sister was talking to her. Angela was acting as if she had the inside track on how to live life the right way just because she was married and had the idyllic number of children: two, a boy and a girl. “And what the baby needs is a mother who loves unconditionally.”

      “Obviously,” had been Angela’s snide retort. Eve knew that her older sister referred not to her loving the baby, but to the situation that had resulted in the creation of this baby. “Look, why won’t you tell the father that he has a responsibility—”

      Eve cut her short. “Because I won’t, that’s all. Subject closed,” she’d said firmly.

      She wasn’t about to tell Angela the reason she wouldn’t notify Adam of his paternity. Even under perfect conditions, she wouldn’t have wanted the father of her child to feel obligated to “step up and do the right thing,” as Angela had declared. When she did get married, it would be because the man who had her heart wanted to marry her, not because he felt he had to marry her.

      And conditions were far from perfect. She hadn’t even told Angela Adam’s name, much less what it was that had sent her running back home to get away from the potential heartache that Adam Smythe—if that was even his name—represented.

      Eve closed her eyes, remembering that night. She might have even still been in Santa Barbara, running the animal clinic there, if she hadn’t overheard Adam on the phone. Closing early for the night, she’d decided to surprise Adam and arrive early for their date. He was on the telephone, his back to her, talking to a potential customer. As she listened, waiting for him to finish, she realized that he wasn’t talking to a customer about one of the books in his shop, but someone calling him about obtaining drugs.

      Horror filled her as she realized that the man who had lit up her world, who was her baby’s father, was one of the lowest life-forms on this earth: a drug dealer.

      The bookstore was just a cover.

      Her soul twisted in disappointment. She couldn’t even bring herself to confront him, to demand to know why he hadn’t told her he was immersed in this dark world before they’d gotten involved with one another.

      Before she’d fallen in love with him.

      She’d felt so sick, so betrayed and so lost. She’d slipped out of the store quickly and silently. Hurrying to her apartment, she’d called him, struggling to hide her anger and hurt, and told Adam that she wasn’t feeling well. Sympathetic, he’d offered to come over to keep her company, but she’d turned him down, saying she was afraid she might be contagious. Promising to call him the next day with an update, she’d hung up.

      It took her less than an hour to pack.

      She’d left Adam a note, telling him she knew what he was involved in and begging him to get out before he became just another dead statistic. And then, after calling the clinic and telling her assistant that there was an emergency and she had to leave, Eve did just that.

      All water under the bridge, she told herself now wearily. Can’t unring a bell. Adam was what he was—and she was pregnant. She was just going to have to make the best of it.

      Right now, that actually involved doing something else she’d never thought she would do: pouring out her heart to a perfect stranger.

      But then, that was exactly what made it so safe and cathartic. She was never going to see the stranger she’d found online, never going to meet MysteryMom, the woman who ran the support Web site she’d discovered several weeks ago. At the time, she hadn’t thought she would write more than once, but venting, getting it all out, proved to be almost euphoric. And it really did make her feel better to unburden herself like this, cloaked in anonymity. Though she wanted to be, she just couldn’t remain tight-lipped right now.

      Besides, confession was supposed to be good for the soul, right?

      God knew, she hadn’t intended on going back to the Web site when she’d sat down tonight, but it had been a long, trying day and after hunting for answers regarding her nearly blind patient, answers that had turned out not to be very optimistic. She’d found herself drawn back to MysteryMom and the woman’s easygoing, low-keyed common sense. It was like having a friend, and right now, she could stand to have a friend. A female friend who seemed to know exactly what she was going through.

      Once she logged on, all it had taken were a few well-intentioned questions from MysteryMom and suddenly the floodgates had been tapped and Eve found herself typing so fast, there was almost smoke coming from her fingers.

      Maybe tomorrow, she’d regret all this, Eve thought philosophically. But then, how could she possibly be in any worse shape than she already was? Wildly in love nine months ago, then wildly disappointed—and now, wildly pregnant.

      Hell of a journey, she thought, typing words to that effect to the sympathetic MysteryMom.

      And then Eve stopped, leaning back in her chair. She glanced toward her sleeping shadow. “I just hope that ‘MysteryMom’ isn’t some cigar chomping, hairy-knuckled oaf getting his jollies by pretending to be a sympathetic single mom,” she said to Tessa.

      Tessa merely yawned and went back to sleeping.

      Eve was about to type another thought when she heard the doorbell ring.

      More trick or treaters.

      With a sigh, Eve gripped the arms on her chair and pushed herself up.

      She missed being able to spring to her feet, but she supposed it could be worse. At least she could still see her feet. When Angela had been pregnant with her first child, Renee, she couldn’t see her feet after entering her seventh month.

      Tessa was on all four of hers, padding quietly behind her, a four-legged, furry shadow determined to remain close.

      Eve passed a mirror on her way to the front door. “At least I don’t look like a blimp,” she consoled herself.

      A goblin, a fairy princess and what looked like a robot, none of whom could have been over ten, shouted “Trick or treat!” at her the moment she opened the door. Delighted, Eve grabbed a handful of candy from the bowl she had placed by the front door and divided the candy between them.

      The goblin paused, relishing his booty, and obviously staring at her. “What are you supposed to be?”

      Eve didn’t even hesitate. “A pumpkin.” It sounded better to her than “beached whale.”

      “But you’re not orange,” the robot protested.

      Eve snapped her fingers. “Knew I forgot something. Thanks for letting me know.”

      Only the fairy princess said nothing beyond, “Thank you,” looking at her knowingly, as if, even at that age, there was an unconscious bond that existed within the female gender.

      And then her little visitors ran off, laughing, all beneath the distant, watchful scrutiny of one of their parents.

      As she slowly closed her front door, Eve realized that the feeling was back. The one that whispered there was someone out there, watching her. Hoping to either catch him or her, or render a death knell to the unnerving feeling, she swung open her door again and looked around.

      Nothing. Again.

      She frowned, closing the door all the way this time. The excitement over, Tessa turned away from the door. “If there is someone out there, promise you’ll rip them limb from limb if they try to break in, Tessa.”

      The dog gave no indication that she heard any of the request. Instead, she trotted